M'hammed.

Teaching, Professional Responsibilities and Research

Dr. M'hammed Abdous is the acting Director of the Center for Learning Technologies where he provides leadership, vision, assistance and support to faculty in course/instructional design, and training on a variety of applications and other emerging technologies. He's involved in several projects designing and producing synchronous and asynchronous courses, using state of the art technologies. The Center for Learning Technologies is a leader in producing high quality online courses, including SCORM compliant content.

Dr Abdous' teaching responsibilities include Advanced Instructional Design, Web Development for Educators, Educational Applications of Technologies and Distributed Learning Trends. His research interests are in the area of distributed learning environments focusing on standards, learning objects and quality. Dr. Abdous is particularly interested in quality standards implementation in the design, production, delivery and maintenance of learning objects. As a part of his professional responsibilities, he's also interested in faculty development models and computer literacy.

Professional Activities and History

During his graduate studies at Laval University (Quebec, Canada), Dr. Abdous was an active member of one of the leading Canadian research centers (TeleLearning Network of Centers of Excellence), where he worked closely with faculty and pre-service teachers using and integrating technology in teaching and learning. His longstanding association with TeleLearning gave him the opportunity to be involved in key projects and professional development activities. In this regard, he designed one of the first workshops on using and integrating Internet resources in teaching and learning. Also, he adapted and translated course management packages from English to French, such as Virtual-U from Simon Fraser University, Website and Knowledge Forum from OISE, University of Toronto.

Prior to joining Old Dominion University in April 2000, Dr. Abdous worked as a Research Associate for a Research Group for Interdisciplinarity in Teacher Education (Sherbrooke, Canada), where he researched, designed, developed and disseminated materials and documentation regarding the pedagogical, administrative, social and technical aspects of online teaching and learning to faculty and graduate students. As a senior instructional designer, Dr. Abdous worked closely with faculty familiarizing them with the methods, tools and new technologies and suggesting productive ways to integrate technology with their face-to-face and online courses.

Background

Dr. Abdous has an eclectic and transversal background ranging from Arabic literature to school administration and planning through French linguistics. After finishing his bachelor's degree in Arabic literature in Morocco, he pursed his master's degree in French linguistics at one of the oldest French universities in North America (Laval University, Quebec) where he also obtained his PhD in school administration and planning. His thesis dealt with the impact of World Bank policies on educational reforms in third world countries. Dr. Abdous' interest in educational technology goes back to the early nineties when he designed the first online French educational resources repository in 1995.

Dr. Abdous works also as a consultant for UNICEF where he advises and trains on curriculum development (textbook writing and evaluation) and project evaluation (information technology integration, competency-based approach and several other projects).

Dr. Abdous is married and has three daughters: Yasmina, Aicha and Iman.

WebMaster: idt@odu.edu